


Understanding

by silver_fish



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Compliant, Friends to Lovers, Hermione's POV, M/M, Oblivious!Harry, Relationship Study, alt title hermione and the stupid stupid boys, harry deserves all the love thanks, my bias is showing sorry not sorry, pining!ron
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-26 22:13:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21866272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silver_fish/pseuds/silver_fish
Summary: OfcourseHermione knows boys are idiots, and her best friends are no exception. But over the years, watching them dance around each other again and again, she really wishes she weren't the only one who understood what all of it means.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Ron Weasley
Comments: 43
Kudos: 531





	Understanding

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/laphicets) / [tumblr](https://kohakhearts.tumblr.com)
> 
> bros idk what i am Doing but i sure am doing it. some notes: everything follows the canon timeline, but i've taken liberties with certain things, of course. overall, though, this is mostly just a study. i was kind of just...messing around. i've never written this ship before but i've liked it for a really long time so! yeah, anyway, this is the product of that so...i pray to god it makes sense, and please enjoy!

The first time she thinks it, they’re thirteen.

At first, she’s sure she must be making things up, of course. Third year, and even by mid-September she’s _exhausted_ , always, can’t keep up even with all this _time_ wrapped around her neck, and she just can’t let herself focus on why in the world she would think something so silly. They’re thirteen, and sometimes thirteen-year-olds think funny things.

But even after Ron turns fourteen, and she can’t _really_ say they’re thirteen anymore, since Harry’s the only one who still is, it doesn’t go away.

She notices it in the Great Hall one day, in April. The way Ron _looks_ at him, like he’s sunshine incarnate, and Hermione _wants_ to say something, but how could she? Ron’s eyes follow his hands, his lips, his every movement, hanging on each word as if they are the source of his oxygen.

Harry never notices, but Hermione has thought for some years now that Harry doesn’t really understand what things like _love_ actually mean.

They’re quickly swept up in the drama of the end of the year, and Hermione decides that she ought not waste much more time worrying about it. They’ll figure it out eventually, she reasons, and maybe, just maybe, she’s not ready for things between them all to change. Besides, Harry has Sirius occupying his mind now, and she hardly wants to take away from whatever it is he’s thinking.

But, the thing is, they don’t figure it out.

When Harry’s name comes out of the Goblet of Fire, Hermione first sees the blank look on his face, and then—

And then, later, she sees Ron, anguished and tormented in a way she has never seen him.

“Do you—do you think…?”

He turns to her, gaze sharp. “No,” he says. “I don’t.”

After that, they are impossible.

A couple weeks after Halloween, Hermione finds herself alone in the Gryffindor common room with Ron. They _were_ doing homework here, but Hermione’s known for about twenty minutes that Ron isn’t focussing on his homework at all. Though she’ll never _admit_ it, she’s having a hard time focussing on hers as well. She bites anxiously at her bottom lip, then says, “You really miss him, don’t you?”

A sharp intake of breath. Accusing eyes.

But Hermione was expecting this.

“It’s okay if you do,” she tells him. “I see the way you look at him.”

“Hermione—”

“It’s okay,” she says again. “You don’t have to pretend.”

For a long moment, neither of them speak.

Finally, Ron says, “I really hate him sometimes,” and of course it’s not true, but Hermione scoots a bit closer to him and offers him a quick smile.

“Let me read that,” she says, gesturing to his essay.

He passes it over to her, and once she is hidden behind parchment, he says, “If I did miss him, would you tell him so?”

Hermione sets the essay on her lap. “No,” she says. “But I wish you would tell him yourself.”

He looks away. She knows, of course: he has already been thinking this, but it is so much harder to admit to missing somebody who doesn’t look at you like you hold the universe in your hands. Not when you already know he holds your entire heart in his.

But they do figure this out, eventually. And in the end, Hermione thinks that they are better off for it.

When the Yule Ball comes around, she tries to convince Ron to ask him, but it doesn’t seem to matter. They go with the Patil twins, but they still gravitate towards one another anyway. And for the first time, Hermione sees what Ron doesn’t:

Ron sees the universe in Harry’s hands, but Harry sees the world in him. His first friend. His best friend.

His most important thing.

Maybe she ought to be jealous that they took Ron instead of her. Maybe she ought to feel left out, or left behind. But she doesn’t. She couldn’t.

When Harry comes out of the maze at the end of that year, hanging on to Cedric’s lifeless body, Hermione knows that Ron sees something different than she does. Her mind is moving fast, trying to _understand_ , but Ron is already struggling to remove himself from the panicked audience, find a way to Harry’s side, and of course they are too late, but Ron is undeterred. He is the one that leads them to the hospital wing, and when Dumbledore tells them what happened, it is Hermione who keeps him from yelling at the headmaster.

Harry is never quite the same, after that.

He is angry. He is sad. He’s distracted and upset and Hermione _wants_ to understand, wants to help, but of course she can’t. How could she? They weren’t there. They’ll never know what, exactly, happened in that graveyard.

And yet, Ron is there. Sometimes they fight. Sometimes he lets Harry push him away. Sometimes he comes to Hermione, defeated, because he doesn’t know what he can do, and Harry has nightmares and Harry doesn’t sleep and Harry won’t even admit he’s hurting, but of course he’s hurting, sometimes it feels like he’s bleeding everywhere and there’s nothing they can do to cover up the wound.

But perhaps the hardest hit is Cho Chang.

It all happens so fast, even for Hermione. She can _see_ the toll it takes out of Ron to play the role of supportive best friend, but she never quite gets a chance to ask him about it. And then Harry has that vision, and Mr Weasley is in the hospital, and the last thing any of them wants to think about it Cho Chang.

In those first days after the attack, Hermione only hears secondhand what happened. She _knows_ Harry, knows that this will be hard for him, and she also knows Ron, who will be thinking a thousand things, all the _wrong_ things, wondering why he hasn’t taken this war seriously yet, wondering if his dad would be dead if not for Harry, but, then, wondering as well whether or not his dad would ever have been in that position at all if not for Harry.

She knows, too, though, that that thought would never possess him for longer than a moment. But it will be Harry who carries it onward, never quite letting it go. _Dangerous_ , that’s what he thinks he is. Some sort of bomb just waiting to explode, when it will take out as many of his loved ones at once as it can.

Because Harry doesn’t really _understand_ love. To him, it is all very simple: if nobody loved him, nobody would even be in danger of getting hurt.

But Hermione knows her best friends better than anybody else. And she knows that Ron will never stop loving Harry, no matter how hard he pushes.

So, this too is something they come out of, but there is a change, too. The occasional fleeting look from Harry, as if he simultaneously can’t believe that Ron has stayed and yet knows it could be no other way. They are two parts of a whole, and Hermione is not stupid enough to believe that _this_ is something she really has a place in, no matter how much else the three of them might function as one entity.

They come back to Hogwarts, and it is sometime near the end of January that Hermione finds herself alone with Harry, who has been—well, he’s been feeling _complicated_ , Hermione thinks, and she knows that he’s always feeling misunderstood, but she _does_ understand him, and she decides that now is as good a time as any to let him know it.

“He was really scared for you, you know.”

He looks up at her, bewildered. “What d’you mean?”

“Ron,” she clarifies. “He was scared. For you. You know that, don’t you?”

Ron will be coming back soon. He has just gone up to their dorm to find a misplaced essay (though he won’t be finding it soon, as it’s currently sitting in Hermione’s bag), but he’ll soon give up the chase and return to them with the sort of nonchalance only Ron could possibly embody when faced with something as stressful as a missing piece of homework. Just this once, Hermione won’t even give him _that_ hard of a time over it, since she is the one who engineered all of this in the first place.

“I don’t want to talk about this,” Harry mutters, looking away from her. He turns his attention to his schoolbag, as if going to pull out a textbook, but Hermione knows he isn’t going to look up again anytime soon.

“But you do know, don’t you?” she presses. “He never stopped to think that—that something was wrong with you, or—”

“But something _is_ wrong with me,” he points out, straightening again but still carefully averting his gaze. “Even if you and Ron don’t… Well, it doesn’t matter.” He sighs, shaking his head. “I don’t want to talk about this,” he says again, stronger now.

“But, Harry—”

“Seriously, Hermione. Just drop it.”

Just then, footsteps coming down the stairs alert them to Ron’s presence, and Hermione has no choice but to drop it. She hastily pulls Ron’s essay out and sets it down in front of her.

“We found it,” she informs him as he takes his seat again, frowning. “ _Honestly_ , you’d think you weren’t really looking. It was under your textbook the whole time!”

Harry knows she’s lying—he sends her a sharp glance that quite clearly tells her so—but when she meets his eyes, he looks away again, a small scowl on his lips, and she holds back a sigh. Obviously, she hasn’t communicated that she understands him at all. He’s been so hard to reach all year, and, now, it only seems to have gotten worse.

January bleeds into February, and when Harry tells them about his upcoming date with Cho, Hermione’s certain she’s the only one who notices the pain in Ron’s eyes.

The way things turn out, Hermione finds herself beginning to wonder, for the first time, whether Harry is really so clueless with dating, or if there is a part of him that is unwilling to even date Cho at all. It is a complicated situation anyway, considering, well, everything, but Hermione suspects that, maybe, there is something more to it. Something on Harry’s end. Something more complicated than Cedric’s death. Something more complicated than Cho’s penchant for bursting into tears at the drop of a hat.

Because Harry doesn’t really understand love.

And, maybe, she has to admit that he really _is_ misunderstood by them. Because how could they ever understand what it’s like for him, when they have grown up with their own parents, who love them, who have never blamed themselves for someone else’s death…

She tries to help him salvage his relationship with Cho, but there’s really nothing for it; by the time spring comes, it is a lost cause, and then there is so much more to be focussed on than romance.

Everything seems to happen so fast, after that.

Dumbledore, Fudge, Umbridge.

The Ministry, and the prophecy, and Sirius.

And they are again stuck in this terrible and uncomfortable position, knowing that something is terribly wrong but having no idea how to _help_ , and when Harry doesn’t come to the feast at the end of the year, Ron and Hermione sit in a heavy silence, wishing there was something they could do.

It’s just before they’re about to head towards the tower that Ron says, “He has nightmares, you know.”

Hermione stares at him. “Yes, I know,” she says. “He’s had them for years.”

Ron’s ears go slightly pink. “Yeah, well, I just—do you— Should I _do_ something?”

“Well, what do you do now?”

He shrugs. “Nothing, I guess. Not like he wants to talk about it.”

Hermione thinks about it for a moment. “Well, what do you _want_ to do?”

“I don’t know!” For a moment, Ron looks the same as he did the year before, when Hermione told him she knew. So much has changed since then.

She puts what she hopes is a consoling hand on his arm. “I think just being there is probably enough,” she tells him. “And—Ron?”

“Yeah?”

“It’ll be okay,” she says firmly, trying to convince herself as much as to convince him.

He musters a small smile. “Yeah. Eventually.”

Maybe they’re kidding themselves, but Hermione clings on to this belief anyway. When she sees her best friends again, she has to. Even though his stay with the Dursleys was short, there is a dullness to Harry’s gaze that doesn’t ever quite go away, a sadness that seems to overwhelm his expression when he thinks nobody else is looking. He doesn’t hold all that anger he did last year, but this, too, is a symptom of something far greater than any of them are prepared to deal with.

And even if it will be okay, Hermione gets the feeling that it will be a very long time before it is.

The year starts out better than the last, with no Umbridge to complicate things, but there is something different that she can’t quite put her finger on until one night Harry falls asleep over his Transfiguration homework in the common room.

When Hermione goes to shake him awake, Ron shakes his head.

“Let him sleep. He needs it.”

She stops, blinking. “Hasn’t he—?”

Ron shakes his head again. “I think he— Well, about Sirius, and—everything else. Y’know?”

Hermione does know. She nods and sits back again, letting Harry sleep on between them. In sleep, he looks much younger than sixteen, but she’s known for years now that, awake or asleep, Harry always feels much older than that. He seems to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders, and he learned long ago that sharing his pain hurts more than it helps.

But even as Hermione moves away, Ron stays close to Harry, pressing their legs flush together. He reaches up and runs a seemingly absent hand through Harry’s hair, and Hermione notices, surprised, that any lingering tension in Harry’s shoulders falls away. He’s left breathing deeply, forehead positioned uncomfortably against the table in front of him.

Ron must see her looking, because he turns bright pink and looks away, muttering, “It helps.”

And yet, he doesn’t move his hand away.

Hermione hides a small smile and turns back to her work. “That’s good,” she says quietly, and that is the end of it.

She keeps noticing it after that, though. More casual, lingering touches, particularly on Ron’s end, a sort of delicacy in all of it. Hermione suspects he doesn’t even notice it, and neither does Harry, but she can’t help wondering.

And then there’s Lavender.

Hermione _wants_ to say she sees it coming, but she really did think Ron was _smarter_ than this. And yet it is abundantly clear that that isn’t the case at all, as they begin dating shortly into the school year, after Ron has some sort of argument with Ginny. The sight of them fills Hermione with white-hot anger, and she keeps close to Harry, though he confesses to her that he doesn’t really know why Ron’s relationship is bothering him.

“Probably because of Cho,” he eventually reasons to her.

“But you’re over her, aren’t you?”

He gives her an odd look. “Well, yeah, but can’t I—I dunno, feel bad that we never _really_ dated?”

The thing about Harry, though, is that he’s not quite as obvious as Ron is, and Hermione can’t say, exactly, that this _isn’t_ the case. She’s known about Ron’s feelings for ages, but not even _Harry_ knows Harry’s feelings.

As things tend to be around Harry, it’s complicated.

It turns out, though, that Hermione’s stance in all of it only serves to make matters worse, as she quickly comes to understand that Lavender thinks _she_ has feelings for Ron. The other girl glares at her when they’re close enough to each other, especially once she and Ron start talking—or arguing, lately—again. Still, when she first gets the opportunity to say so, she tells Ron she thinks he’s being a jerk.

“You don’t get it,” he tells her angrily. “You know as much as I do he’ll never see me like that. He doesn’t even like blokes, Hermione, what d’you expect me to do?”

“You don’t know that! You’ve never even asked him!”

“I don’t need to ask him, he’s my best mate!”

“But he _does_ love you,” she insists. “He would want to know. You’re just—being stupid! This is stupid!”

He shakes his head. “It’s different, and you know it.”

“And you’d rather have Lavender clinging to you everywhere you go?” she demands. “I know you’re scared—”

“I am not scared!”

“Of course you are! You’re making yourself miserable _and_ Harry, and—”

“You don’t get it,” he says angrily. “He—you— Just leave it, all right?”

And after he walks away from her, she does leave it, though more because he won’t listen to her when she starts talking than because she actually thinks it’s a good idea to drop it.

Harry, for his part, seems too invested in Draco Malfoy to let himself think too hard about why he hates to see Lavender and Ron together, but Hermione knows that Ron still stays up with him on the worst nights even if they’re both too embarrassed to admit it. It’s clear in the way they interact when Lavender isn’t around, in the exhaustion that comes from a long night that they now share when a year ago they wouldn’t have. As uncomfortable as it all is, this routine of theirs remains the same into the winter holidays, and then even after it.

And then Ron is poisoned.

As irritated as Hermione has been with Harry’s reliance on the Half-Blood Prince’s textbook, she can at least admit that in this case, it really has done good. She can tell that Harry is more shaken, even after the event, than he would like anybody to think he is, and she dreads to think what might have happened if Harry hadn’t acted as he had in Slughorn’s office.

They visit Ron frequently while he’s recovering, but Lavender seems rather annoyed with this fact, cornering Harry as if to interrogate him at every moment possible. And there is a subtle sort of irony to it, that Lavender thinks Harry knows why Ron is distant from her, when of course Harry doesn’t know, Harry has never known. It is the simple act of saving Ron’s life, apparently, that makes Ron give up on whatever he was trying to get out of Lavender in the first place.

Hermione suspects that he had hoped, if he spent enough time with Lavender’s tongue in his mouth, he would stop wishing it was Harry instead. But, as she had been trying to do for months, she could have told him that _that_ was a fruitless endeavour. Short of cutting Harry from his life completely, there is probably nothing that could bring about _that_ result.

It seems like Ron is _trying_ to tell Harry, finally. But he barely gets the chance to steel himself for it, because then there is _Ginny_.

And Hermione wonders how in the world she has even managed this long without losing her head completely.

Their relationship lacks the physicality, as far as Hermione can see, that one would expect from a couple of their ages. There is perhaps nothing worse for Ron than watching Harry fool himself yet again with his _sister_ of all people.

Hermione doesn’t doubt anymore that that’s what this is. All the wrong conclusions leading to a feeling he thinks _must_ be love, or something leading to it, because of course Harry doesn’t really understand love, has never really understood love, and never does he express so more clearly than after Dumbledore dies and he expects them to stay behind, without him. And of course he knows he would die for them a thousand times over, but if they did the same for him, he would break at the seams, torn apart by the awful, eating feeling that it was all his fault.

There is no reprieve for them, after that. The wait until Harry’s seventeenth birthday, until the wedding, seems to stretch on forever. Hermione arrives at the Burrow before they’re meant to meet Harry at his aunt and uncle’s house, and it is Ron who approaches her to ask, “What should I do?”

Hermione doesn’t need him to clarify.

“He’s scared,” she says, and is pleased to note that it’s all starting to _make sense_ to her, in a way it hasn’t since she first considered the possibility that one of her best friends was in love with the other. “I think...as long as Voldemort is still alive, he’ll keep pushing us away.”

Ron nods. He has likely come to this conclusion as well.

“Ginny’s pretty upset,” he says.

“Of course.” Hermione has been staying with her since she arrived here. “I wish I had known what he was thinking.”

Ron snorts. “Like that’ll ever happen. I didn’t know either, but, well, she’s my sister.”

Hermione hums in thought. She _is_ his sister. It had to have crossed Harry’s mind a thousand times, too. _Ron’s sister_.

“So, what?” Ron finally says after a while. “We just wait around ‘til You-Know-Who’s dead?”

“What else can we do?”

Begrudgingly, he has to agree with this, and it doesn’t come up again.

The day they bring Harry to the Burrow is one of the worst.

Hermione worries about him, in a way she doesn’t quite worry about Ron or Ginny or anyone, really. How he takes the blame for everything without ever even considering that it might not have been his fault. The way he _avoids_ , his absolute apathy regarding Hedwig, his warped convictions and his burning fear that if he doesn’t do this alone, the next death will be too close, and he won’t be able to stop it. Just like Sirius. Just like Dumbledore.

Hermione won’t say that she _isn’t_ afraid of dying, because of course she is. But if she let that spur her to inaction, she wouldn’t be able to forgive herself either, and she knows Ron is the same.

After that, she suspects he wakes in the night more often. Ron rides that exhaustion with him, always, dedicated to him down to his final bone.

Things happen very fast after the wedding, though. They are at Grimmauld Place, and then they’re storming the Ministry, and then—

There is the locket.

Ron is hurt, and they have no food, and Harry keeps having visions of Voldemort, and they keep _arguing_. It’s not _all_ about the Horcrux hunt, or even about what Harry does or does not know. Hermione thought he knew more too, but this—this is different.

It is about Ginny, too. And the past four years, inferiority and jealousy and this awful feeling that Harry would rather do it alone, or maybe with just Hermione, and no matter what she tells him, it doesn’t go away.

Harry is bad in his own way, caught up in whatever brooding thoughts and feelings have accompanied him even here. It is not that he would be better off on his own, but for Ron’s and Hermione’s sakes, he wishes he was.

Hermione knows it, and Ron does too.

But when Harry wakes from a night of obviously fitful sleep, and Ron seems unbothered, Hermione begins to understand that this is bigger than anything that has ever come between them before. It is the very same day that Ron seems unable to hold it all in any longer.

“Leave, then!” Harry is yelling at him, all blinding rage, and Hermione doesn’t know what to do say, what to do, wishing desperately that they could go back to last year, or even fourth year, when no matter what stupid things they did, she never had to doubt they would always still be best friends. _Her_ best friends, if nothing else.

“Hermione?” Ron demands. “Well? Are you coming with me or not?”

Fearful, she shakes her head. “I—we promised, you— _we_ said—”

He snarls at her. “You think you understand, but _you_ —” With a sound of deep derision, he pulls the locket off and tosses it towards her. “I knew it was always about him, not me. You’ve no idea how it feels, knowing— No idea!”

“Ron—”

But it is no good; Harry has drawn his wand, and Ron has drawn his, and with nothing else to do but keep them from hurting each other more than they already have, Hermione pulls out her own wand and yells, “ _Protego_!”

It all happens so fast. One moment, Ron is still there, and the next he has hurried away, disappeared completely, and though Hermione runs after him she knows it is pointless. When she returns, it is to a stunned and, though he certainly won’t say so, hurt Harry.

And for the next few weeks, it quickly becomes a terrible game of avoidance. Harry will not even speak his name. Hermione replays his words in her head and finds tears in her eyes all over again. Harry never brings it up, though of course he has no idea what Ron was saying to her, but, then, maybe he thinks he does. It would be like him to assume the worst, to assume it has anything to do with him and nothing to do with Ron.

She _tries_ , after a while, to get him to talk, but there’s nothing to it. He must think she is in a terrible state over Ron’s departure, but she doubts it measures up at all to what he himself is feeling. He sleeps poorly, he struggles to even move forward, he is nearly as avoidant about mentioning Ron as he ever was Cedric or Sirius or Hedwig.

When they go to Godric’s Hollow, she’s certain that there is more in his head than the parents he never really knew. There are no words she can even think of, watching him before his parents’ graves, and there is no time in memory she has ever seen him fall so completely apart, not after Cedric, not after Sirius, not after Dumbledore. This is like sixteen years of pent-up grief, spilling over for the parents he was never allowed to mourn for.

Whatever is going through his head in this moment, Hermione honestly doesn’t think she would ever want to know. His deepest thoughts are often a mystery to them. They can wager guesses, but Hermione has a feeling not even Ron knows what he dreams about at night. But he has had nightmares even before Cedric died. Since they were in first year.

And he remembers, if only in fragments, the moments of his parents’ deaths.

No matter what her feelings may be, Hermione can count herself lucky to at least have parents alive to protect.

With everything that happens after, they don’t dwell much on the graveyard or the monuments themselves. But shortly after, Hermione tries to bring up Ron again, and is almost too surprised to continue with what she’s saying when Harry doesn’t immediately deflect the topic away.

“You can be upset about it, you know,” she says quietly. “I know you are.”

He twirls her wand in his hand absently. “Not like I can do anything about it. I dunno what he thinks about you and me, but…” He shrugs. “Nothing I said could’ve changed his mind.”

“But—it’s not about me,” she tells him, feeling desperate. “It’s—”

“Me, yeah, I know.” He shoots her an odd look. “Because I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, and I put everyone in danger just by breathing, yeah, I know.”

“You can still be upset about it, though, Harry!”

“I don’t want to think about it,” he says shortly. “I’m sure he’s much happier now than he was with us.”

“But—you miss him. Don’t you?”

He sighs, her wand stilling. “More than I thought I would,” he admits. “More like missing an arm, I suppose. I’m sorry, Hermione. I know this is harder for—”

“It is not,” she says sharply. “Don’t you finish that sentence, Harry Potter. I’m talking about _you_. I’ve let myself cry about it. Have _you_?”

“I’m not going to cry over it,” he mutters, looking away from her. 

“That’s not what I mean. Just...it’s okay. To feel sad about it, or—or anything. _Really_.” She pauses a moment, hesitant, then adds, “It’s different for you than it is for me. You have something different.”

“But don’t you…?”

Fervently, she shakes her head. “You’re like my brothers, both of you.” She smiles wryly. “Besides, I’ve no time for romance and things. Don’t you know how many books there still are that I haven’t read?”

“So, you and Ron...but…” He stops, blinking. “But he—you—he _said_ …” He blinks harder. “Merlin, Hermione, why didn’t you just tell him so? He obviously has some kind of— _idea_ about you and me.”

 _Oh, Harry. You really can be_ so _oblivious_.

She just offers him a small, sad smile. “It’s not so simple, unfortunately. Anyway...I just think you should—well, you ought to know, if you wanted to talk about it...I do want to listen. Really. And...and everything else too. What happened in Godric’s Hollow…”

It is the wrong thing to say. Immediately, he tenses, his face voiding itself of emotion.

“But if you’re not ready for that,” she hurries on, “that’s okay too. Just—just remember, okay? I love you.”

Guardedly, he nods, and that is the end of that.

When Ron comes back, _something_ has changed.

Neither of them tell her what exactly happened, but maybe they don’t need to. That closeness is back, the rift between them completely, miraculously, bridged. Harry sleeps better than he has since Dumbledore died, surely, and even at the most tense of moments there is never any doubt that Ron is here to stay, that he belongs here, with Harry, with Hermione, as surely as ever.

Nothing but Horcruxes and Hallows really comes up between them, except when they’re talking about their friends and family, and the war. And everything happens too fast, anyway, to even think about much of anything else.

It always happens too fast.

Hermione is closest to Ron when they bring back his body. There is disbelief, and the tear in their throats as they begin to scream, horrified. Their best friend, limp in Hagrid’s arms, and…

And Ron’s voice is cracked, broken, seven years of feelings unsaid and unheard, the culmination of a grief that set in ages ago, heightened by the losses they have already borne witness to today…

But the fight is not over, and then Harry is _there_ , and he is alive, and he is going to end it all, the way he always thought he would. They watch, unable to even breathe, and then it is over, and they are running to him, running, determined to be the first to touch him, to be certain this is _real_ , he is here, they are okay.

He tells them the truth, or as close to it as he can. He falters on the parts that are too close to his heart, about the Resurrection Stone and his parents and Sirius and Remus and _Dumbledore_ , but they hear those things anyway, of course they do, and then they are in the Headmaster’s office and everything is _over_ , it’s all over, and it is just them.

And Ron says, “Why didn’t you find us before you went?”

Harry is at the door, poised to lead them out, and he stops.

Hermione waits, heart beating hard. If the portraits of the old headmasters are listening, as Hermione suspects they are, they are making a good show of being silent too.

“I couldn’t,” Harry says softly.

“But why…?”

He closes his eyes. Takes in a deep breath, and then releases it in twice the time.

“Because if I had, I wouldn’t have gone.” He looks down at his feet, shoulders hunched. “Let’s...let’s get back to Gryffindor Tower, all right? I’m exhausted.”

Ron looks like he might argue, but stops himself at the last moment and nods, letting Harry lead them out. While they walk, Hermione’s mind moves very fast indeed. From the way Harry’s talking, it _does_ sound like he didn’t know he was going to be able to come back. Of course, death would surely not be so scary, if not for its absolutism, its inevitability.

The Fat Lady lets them in without even a guess at the password. They’re the only ones here, everyone else down in the Great Hall or otherwise scattered about the castle, celebrating or mourning or just trying to catch their breath. Harry sits heavily in front of the fire, and Ron and Hermione sit on either side of him.

Finally, he says, “I’m sorry for worrying you.”

Ron stares at him. “We thought you were _dead_ , mate. I thought—Merlin, I _thought_ …”

Harry winces. “I’m sorry,” he repeats hoarsely. “It was the only…”

Hermione reaches out and grabs his hand, squeezing it tightly in hers. “We’re just glad to have you back.”

He smiles faintly at her, then looks at Ron.

“I dunno what I would’ve done.” Ron’s voice is tight, strangled. “After Fred...then you, I just…”

Harry drops his gaze, but Hermione doesn’t miss the look on his face.

“Tell him,” she says, and when they both turn to her, surprised, she realizes she isn’t completely sure which one of them she’s actually talking to.

“Er.” Harry shifts slightly. “I missed you, you know.”

As far as confessions go, it really is rather weak, but Hermione hardly expected Harry to start understanding love _now_.

“When you were gone,” he clarifies after a moment. “I don’t want to...I’d rather… You’ll stay with me, won’t you?”

Ron’s expression softens. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “‘Course I will.”

Harry nods, relieved. “Part of me wanted to stay behind,” he admits. “This— Life, everything—I almost stayed there. It would’ve been easier, y’know? But...but you...and Hermione, and everyone...I…”

“I’m glad you didn’t,” Ron says fiercely. “I’d’ve killed you if you’d died.”

Harry gives a shaky laugh. “Well, I think I really _was_ dead. I don’t really understand it all myself.”

Carefully, Hermione pulls her hand out of Harry’s. “It’s over now,” she says. “That’s what matters.”

On the other side of Harry, Ron meets her eyes and then takes in a deep breath, nodding marginally.

“I love you,” he says, and there is no doubt the words are for Harry.

Harry just looks at him oddly, though. “Er, yeah. I love you too, mate.”

Ron shakes his head. “Not—I mean—”

He stops. Harry and Hermione wait, but no matter how many times he opens and closes his mouth, the words don’t come.

Hermione rolls her eyes. “He means he’s _in_ love with you,” she says matter-of-factly.

“Huh?”

“Oh, honestly Harry, you can’t be _that_ thick.”

He looks between them incredulous. “What? But—Hermione, I thought Ron— _you_ — What?”

“Hermione?” Ron sounds downright disturbed. Any other time, Hermione might have been offended, but she can’t quite summon it now, today, after everything. “You’re mad. _Hermione_?”

“But—the Horcrux,” Harry says, sounding desperate, now. “Hermione and—”

He stops, seeming to reach an understanding just as Ron finishes with, “And _you_.”

“Oh,” Harry says quietly.

“You don’t need to do anything about it,” Ron says hastily. “But I thought—after today, I...I really thought you were...I couldn’t...not without telling you.”

Silence envelopes them for quite some time, awkward and tense, and then Harry asks, “But why?”

“What?”

“Why?” he presses. “You—that’s mad. You’re...you, and I’m me, and…”

Hermione tucks her knees up to her chest, studying her toes. “You do deserve it, though,” she says quietly. “Love. You can have it.”

“But I don’t—”

“That’s okay,” Ron tells him. “You don’t need to, er, pretend to feel the same, or anything. I just wanted to…”

Harry is looking at Hermione, though. “You really… How did you know?”

“It doesn’t take a genius, Harry. Not to be rude or anything, but your self-esteem is pretty glaringly awful. And after Cho, I sort of...suspected, but—well, it was obvious with Ginny. You shouldn’t have used her like that,” she adds, chastising. “It wasn’t fair to either of you, _or_ Ron.”

Harry’s cheeks redden. “I didn’t know I was using her,” he mutters. “Not until Christmas, anyway…”

“What’re you—?”

But Ron falls silent when Harry whirls around to look at him. There is one moment where they simply look at each other, and then Harry leans forward, hands wrapping around his best friend’s head, and they’re kissing as if neither of them have ever been kissed before.

Tactfully, Hermione looks away, but she can’t help the smile that spreads across her face.

When they separate, Harry says, very quietly, “When you left, I thought… Well, I dunno what I thought. But everything is easier with you. Even when you’re making things hard. I don’t know how I ever slept knowing you weren’t right there, or...or anything, y’know?”

“Harry—”

“It was always you,” Harry says quickly. “From the first time we met on the train. It couldn’t’ve been someone else.”

Ron sits in shocked silence for a moment, then peers around Harry at Hermione.

“You knew?” he demands.

Her lips twitch. “Maybe,” she allows. “But I wasn’t going to do all the work for you, was I?”

Ron grumbles something about _righteous know-it-all_ , but he’s grinning, and his body is still flush against Harry’s, arms around his waist, and of course he isn’t angry or upset at her. For him, this has been worth the wait, and for Harry…

Well, Hermione thinks that he might just be starting to understand what _love_ means after all.

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos are always appreciated! xx
> 
> (p.s. catch me on twitter [@laphicets](https://twitter.com/laphicets) or tumblr [@kohakhearts](https://kohakhearts.tumblr.com) for writing updates. i also sometimes take writing requests on both!)


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